Excerpt: Go I Know Not Whither, To Fetch I Know Not What... and other stories

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there were two neighboring kingdoms that had a legendary feud between them. For five hundred years the two kingdoms fought for land and power, trading battles and men, until all had lost hope that peace could ever be forged between them.

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One spring afternoon, a large black dog ran through the forest, its paws pounding the ground furiously as it closed the distance between itself and the fox it was hunting. A loud bark echoed in the silence just as it reached the fox, catching it by the neck and causing it to scream wildly in an alarmingly human way. The dog stopped shaking it but kept a hold on it, waiting to see if it would scream again. To the dog’s great surprise, however, it began to speak.

“Please, please, don’t kill me,” the fox begged, its voice high pitched and panicked. “Please!”